Britain’s to spend nearly £60 less on Christmas shopping

According to a survey of 2,000 adults by ING Direct, Britain’s will spend an average of £58 less this Christmas. Last year, Britain’s spent an average of £548 on Christmas presents and entertainment, but this year they expect to spend just £490.

Men are expected to show more restraint with those surveyed expecting to spend £100 less this year, compared to women who only plan to cut back by £30.

The survey also shows that an increasing number of Britain’s will use savings to purchase presents this year, rather than favouring credit like in previous years. Last year just 11% of Britain’s used savings to pay for Christmas but that number is expected to triple this year.

Chief executive of ING Direct, Richard Doe, pointed out, “It seems that Britons are determined to spend the New Year re-building their savings balances, rather than paying off large credit card bills, which can only be a good thing for family finances.”

The news that Britain’s are not using credit will also please the charity, Christians against Poverty, who are keen to highlight the risks of going into debt.

Matt Barlow, chief executive of CAP, said: “These are difficult times for a lot of us and the temptation is to say, ‘at least we’ll have a great Christmas’ and use that as an excuse to spend what we haven’t got. If you’ve already caught yourself saying this, we want your alarm bells to be ringing loud and clear.”

He added, “The new year is full of uncertainty: job losses, VAT will be going up, benefits are changing, energy bills are rising and we don’t know what interest rates will do. If we were ever going to get our spending under control at Christmas – it should be this year.”

Contribute

Useful Links

About Us

FinanceNews.co.uk aims to become a one-stop shop for personal finance content, news and information in the UK. With news topics covering everything in the personal finance sector from bank accounts to credit cards, debt to savings, we have a dedicated team of authors and business people who aim to bring you the leading stories, information, reviews and comparisons from an independent and informative perspective. The Finance News Team